US uses the big stick in Iraq with diplomatically disastrous consequences

The US has held back and held back and held back when provoked by Iran: not launching retaliatory strikes when Iran shot down a hugely expensive drone over international waters in the Gulf, not hitting back when Iranian-inspired or authorised bomb attacks hit shipping in the Gulf waterway, not punishing Tehran with strikes when cruise missiles and drones hit a Saudi oil processing plant. Tehran must have been delighted and made the calculation/miscalculation that Washington was opting for the quiet life and desperately didn't want any more conflict in the Middle East. As a result of this miscalculation, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard bovver boys decided to increase attacks on US forces in Iraq and ordered their proxy Shia militia fighters, bizarrely allied to the Iraqi armed forces, to launch rocket attacks on US/Iraqi bases. In one of the attacks an American contractor was killed and other Americans were wounded. The death of an American always puts things into a different context if you're sitting in the Oval Office in the White House. Restraint was over. Orders were sent to the Pentagon to give 'em hell. Thus, F-15E Strike Eagles were sent to hit five targets in Iraq and Syria, all associated with the Shia militia group known as Kataib Hezbollah. Pentagon officials insisted the retaliation was proportionate. But when a military superpower, the world's only real superpower, takes action against a bunch of extreme militia armed with rockets, it will never seem proportionate, not at least to those targeted by the F-15Es armed with precision-guided missiles. As a result there have been mass protests culminating in the storming of the huge US embassy compound in Baghdad today. While the US retaliatory strikes were understandable and I guess inevitable following the death of the American contractor, did anyone in the Pentagon or State Department warn the White House that airstrikes could have a huge negative impact on relations with the Iraqi government? The government of Adil Abdul-Mahdi relies on both the US and Iran to prop it up. It's a three-way disaster marriage. The Iraqi prime minister pleaded with Mark Esper, US defence secretary, not to go ahead with the strikes after being given 30 minutes' notice but apparently didn't tip off Tehran. That underlines the tortuous diplomacy he is faced with every day, trying to please both the US and Iran at the same time. After the strikes he accused the US of breaching Iraqi sovereignty. He probably hoped that might appease his Iranian backers. But it just emphasised the weakness of his position as Iraqi leader. He failed to stop the Iranian-backed militia from attacking US forces and he failed to stop the US from attacking Hezbollah bases. Twenty-five Hezbollah fighters are dead as a consequence. No wonder Trump wants to get the hell out of Iraq. It's a country doomed to face conflict in one form or other for the foreseeable future. Now if Saddam Hussein was still in charge........

Is it time for rapprochement with Vladimir Putin?

Donald Trump has either a year left in office or five years. Either way, there has got to be a better chance of improving relations between Moscow and Washington under a Trump presidency than, say, a Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders administration. So 2020 could be a big year for US/Russia relations if Vladimir Putin and Trump play their cards right. Trump could well take a risk and go hellbent on bringing Putin back into the international family, like inviting him into the G7 group to revert it to the old G8. You might ask, why should we forgive Putin for all his horrors and move to improve relations? Well, Putin can never be forgiven for invading and annexing Crimea, for grabbing a slab of Georgia, for inciting a war in eastern Ukraine and for sending his GRU military intelligence agency hit squad around Europe bumping off his opponents - notably his clearly authorised attempt to fatally poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter with novichok nerve agent in 2018. But, despite all that, we are about to enter a new decade and we in the West cannot afford, in every meaning of that word, to regard Russia as Enemy 1 and a potential adversary in what would the most destructive war ever to be witnessed on the planet. Putin may be regarded as a rogue president who cannot throw off his KGB past but the fact is the world will be a whole lot safer if we talk to the Russian leader and attempt to be amicable and engaging. It's time for a big effort to get Russia and the West on a more sensible footing. Putin of course may not want to be friends with the West, especially now he possesses the fastest and longest-range nuclear-capable missile in his weapons inventory, the hypersonic Avangard missile claimed by the Russians to be capable of reaching a maximum 27 times the speed of sound and so manoeuvrable it can switch direction instantly, like a lion chasing an antelope. Putin, like all his predecessors, remains convinced that the West, Nato in particular, would love to destroy Russia. But of course that is and always was rubbish paranoia. There were never any Nato plans to invade Russia but all the Cold War Russian leaders told their people that Nato was the Big Enemy ready at any moment to send its hordes of troops across the border. All paranoia, although, to be fair, we in the West suffered the same paranoia, believing that the Soviet hordes were at any moment going to launch a conventional attack on western Europe. In 2020 we can no longer afford to suffer from this tyoe of paranoia. There are too many other dangers facing this world. So let's break down the barriers with Russia and start being friends. The most positive moment of 2019 came in a phone call from Putin to Trump last week when the Russian president thanked the US president for helping to stop a planned terrorist attack in St Petersburg, following a tip-off from American intelligence services. That's a good sign. Putin saying thank you. So, Mr Trump, in the time you have left in the White House, get relations with Russia moving in a more friendly direction. In my humble view, Nato's expansion to the Baltics and Black Sea was a mistake. It might have looked a smart move after the Soviet Union collapsed but Nato went too far and revived Russian paranoia to a new level. It's too late to change all that. But the Pentagon's current strategy is to openly regard Russia and China as America's main future enemies. I always thought that was unwise if this world is ever going to move to a more stable situation. The West needs to make friends, not enemies. If Putin reads every day that Russia is viewed as America's Enemy Number 1, no wonder he is so enthusiastic about his new Avangard missiles. The arms race is truly back on the schedule and that can't be good news as we progress into the next decade.

2019 was a bad year for EU Remainers, Theresa May and Prince Andrew

In the last 12 months nothing has gone right for a lot of high-profile people. It has been a year to look back on with relief that it's over. A bad year. A year of disillusion. Let us hope that next year, the start of a new decade, will be a point in history which everyone will remember as a period of rennaissance, of fresh hope and wise political decisions. It was a terrible year for Theresa May. She was ridiculed, belittled, unloved, insulted and effectively thrown out of office. Or, as she put it, she stepped down from the job she had loved. Really? Could she have enjoyed being prime minister at any point in her three-year reign? She basically drafted a perfectly good Brexit plan but it was rejected by Parliament three times as if it was a document covered in dog faeces when actually it would have probably served this country better than the Boris Johnson version which is a harsher Brexit, in terms of extracting the UK from EU tentacles, more complex and more difficult to implement. But for ever Theresa May's leadership will be associated with dither and failure even though the dithering and failing were largely due to parliament and the extreme factions within the Conservative party and the hopeless leadership or lack of leadership in the Labour party. By the way, good riddance to Jeremy Corbyn and his Leninist team around him. No sympathy for them but definitely some empathy for Theresa who never really stood a chance and had to face up to patronising EU leaders, especially that cringing Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission until his no doubt excessively lucrative retirement a few months ago. So farewell Theresa, you did your best but it just wasn't enough. Your worst year is nearly over. EU Remainers all lost out. Brexit WILL go ahead. I have accepted it with a great deal of sadness but the hardest Remainers in Parliament who undercut everything Theresa tried to do and never accepted the 2016 referendum decision were roundly defeated when Boris took over. I am assuming Boris will NOT retain the services of the awful Jacob Rees-Mogg when he reshuffles his Cabinet in February. Rees-Mogg was definitely a loser in 2019. For one person of averagely medium profile 2019 was the worst year of his life. Prince Andrew was never a Royal Family superstar but his long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the loathsome teenage girl philanderer, and his questionable involvement in Epstein's shady world, plus that gruesomely throwaway I've-done-nothing-wrong TV interview with Emily Maitlis transformed the minor royal into a headline-making superbaddie. It's a year which he will want to forget but will never be allowed to forget.

This has been the year of protest

The vegetable stallholder who set himself alight in Tunisia in December 2010 in protest at police harrassment indirectly led to an extraordinary movement against harsh Arab regimes. Governments were toppled. It was called the Arab Spring and affected Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Bahrain. The dream of real democracy developing across the Arab world proved a false dawn. Perhaps only in Tunisia did the democratic spark stay alive long enough to make a difference. Nine years later we have had another year of violent protest but in other parts of the world: Hong Kong, Venezuela, Chile and Iran. Hong Kong witnessed the most staggeringly scary protests with full-scale street warfare enveloping the former British colony before the violence was brought to an end by tough, over-robust police action. Beijing wisely did not intervene with troops and eventually the most radical protestors were surrounded and defeated. Will these protests that filled our television screens for weeks bring a promise of democracy and permanent independence for Hong Kong? No, they will not. Beijing will never brook a breakaway state that has belonged to China since the handover by the British on July 1 1997. Likewise, the mass protests in Caracas and other cities and towns in Venezuela which provoked a violent response from police and troops failed to move the rigid, corrupt and repressive Nicolas Maduro to change his ways. Maduro remains president of Venezuela and the people are still trying to leave the country in their thousands to find food and jobs and a decent way of life. Protest in Venezuela achieved nothing but misery and tragedy. Democracy under Maduro died a painful death. Many of the Venezuelans leaving their country headed for Chile where there was every expectation of a life of stability and hope. But the government of Santiago took some hard economic steps including raising the price of petrol and suddenly there were huge protests in the streets of the capital. Violence broke out. The fervour for fairness amongst the people was crushed. The same thing happened in Iran when, under inceasing strain from US and international sanctions, the Tehran government raised petrol prices. Violent protests erupted in towns across the country. In all four countries the protests brought no change. Governments suppressed. So the Arab Spring failed, resulting in many cases in harsh repression, and the 2019 protests also failed. The people rose up but were quickly brought down. What a sad commentary on this world of ours.

Could the next US vice president be a big deal?

The role of vice president in the United States is not normally of major historic importance. Probably only one has had a great impact in recent years. Dick Cheney. Basically because of the well known deal between him and George W Bush in which the second Bush president agreed to let his Number 2 become a Super Interferer-in-Chief. Cheney was into everything, whispering if not shouting into Bush's ear at every available opportunity. But Cheney was unique, and uniquely powerful. The world could probably do without another Cheney. But let's look at the possible vice presidential candidates for the 2020 election. I've written before that I believe it would be brilliant for Trump to ditch Mike Pence and ask Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN, to join his ticket. It probably won't happen, but she would be sensational and it would give her a big chance of becoming president in 2024. She's good and, amazingly, has managed to escape the wrath of Trump. But it looks like the creepy Pency will be standing by Trump's side throughout 2020. So let's look at the Democrats. The ones that count: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg and, maybe Mike Bloomberg. The latest whispers reveal that Bernie Sanders' campaign team is becoming increasingly confident that he might actually make it. So would he dare to ask Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the fiery, feisty Representative for New York's 14th congressional district who is currently a very lively member of his campaign team? She has really stirred things up politically since she was elected in the 2019 mid-term elections and Trump hates her. She is only 30 but my God she keeps people awake at night. Bernie and Alexandria together for the Democratic nomination? Wow, that would be fun. Joe Biden has to be very careful who he would choose. Like Bernie, he is pretty old, but would he get away with having a young attractive woman as his vice presidential running mate? Especially with his reputation for being overly closely attentive to women. I've suggested Kamala Harris before. No longer a candidate for president, she would undoubtedly add warmth and glamour and sharpness to his campaign. But he has to be careful. Bernie and Alexandria would look terrific but Joe and Alexandria? No. Joe and Kamala? Possible. Elizabeth Warren I guess would choose a male vice president and might be smart enough to go for Buttigieg. He would add quality and youth. Assuming of course Buttigieg doesn't make it to the nomination. As for Mike Bloomberg, I doubt anyone would want to be his vice president. The most exciting of this bunch? Without doubt, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

2020 is the year for climate change action

If President Trump is reelected in November 2020 which still seems the most likely outcome, any momentum for climate-change action will vanish. Even amongst the believers who are convinced the climate is changing dangerously for the planet there is division over how to tackle the challenges. As the former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has said today, the troulbe is no one except the real experts truly understands or wants to understand the implications of what mght happen to the planet in the next 20 years. We have all seen the Hollywood disaster movies when the world comes to an end and it's scary but fun. Now however the human race is unquestionably facing a truly scary future of increasingy dire weather conditions and sea rises and desperate heat and all the other things that come with abusing the planet. Even if Trump, a total non-believer in climate change, is ousted in November, I doubt any of his challengers have the real guts to make a difference and persuade the whole world to look on climate change as the single most deadly challenge facing us all. When you're in middle or old age it is too easy to think to yourself, well they're talking about 50-100 years, so that won't affect me. But there are two reasons why that is selfish, unforgiveable and totally unacceptable. First, the youngest generation and the next generation and so on will have to suffer the consequences of the inaction of today's so-called adults; and second, the 50-100 year timeframe is already looking far too optimistic. The changes have begun and over the next 10-20 years there are going to be some frightening weather patterns that could destroy the lives of millions of people. The Swedish teenager has tried her best to empower the younger generation to confront the politicians, but somehow, because of her age and piercing message, her seniors but not betters have partially dismissed her as a nuisance. Trump was positively rude to her when he brushed past her with his entourage earlier this year. I'm surprised he didn't pat her on the head. The trouble is too many leaders have other things on their mind, Boris with Brexit, Macron with national protests, Merkel with her legacy, Xi Zinping with his grandeur and hegemony ambitions, Putin with his malevolence and the EU with striving to stay relevant and afloat. The climate will change as political in-fighting and natonal rivalries continue apace. Is it too much to ask that 2020 be made the year of real climate-change action? I fear it may be.

The death of a Green Beret in Afghanistan

While the world seems to have turned topsy-turvy in 2019, the war in Afghanistan has just ploughed on, taking lives. The latest American soldier to die was Sergeant 1st Class Michael Goble. He died from a roadside bomb in Kunduz province in the north. He was 33. He was the 20th American soldier to die in Afghanistan this year. Nearly 2,400 US military personnel have died in this wretched war since it began in 2001. A thousand more coalition troops have died. Statistics are relentless. And each death means tragedy and grief and the constant nagging question: has it all been worth it? The only answer has to be, yes, many things have changed for the better in Afghanistan, but the killings and injuries never stop. Next year is surely the year when this war must finally come to an end. The US wants to start withdrawing its troops from around the world, including from the Middle East and West Africa, according to the New York Times, but Afghanistan has to be at the top of the withdrawal list. But the death of Sergeant Goble from 1st Battalion 7th Special Forces Group is a reminder that no one in the White House or Pentagon can give the order to leave until the right political circumstances have been negotiated and set in concrete. He and all the others died for a purpose, they died to give Afghans a better and more stable life. So it's the responsibility of the US and the Afghan government and possibly Russia and Pakistan to make sure that the Taliban, many of whom have known nothing but war all their lives, agree and abide by an honourabe peace settlement. 2020 must be the last year of the Afghanistan war.